Letters to the editor

Editor’s Note: In last week’s issue we published a letter from a sixth grade student at Kentucky Christian School who asked our readers what the most important personal trait in a presidential candidate is. She said truthfulness was most important and that she also wanted the president to be a Christian. Several readers responded:

Dear Ellie:

It was wonderful to read your letter. I wish all the children in our country were as interested and concerned about the president as you are. In fact, I wish all the people who are eligible to vote would be as concerned and exercise that great privilege.

You have chosen a most important trait — truthfulness, but I think the most important trait for the leader of any group or country is an understanding of history. We ought to have learned from our earlier mistakes, but we can’t if we don’t know what they are.

I want our leader to be a good man or woman, Christian or otherwise. It is not necessary for Americans to be Christians. In fact, our country was founded on the principle of religious freedom. Our most precious document is the Constitution of the United States and freedom of religion is stated very clearly in our Bill of Rights. Wonderful things have been done in the name of any and all religions: hospitals have been founded, tithing has taken care of our less fortunate neighbors, etc. But terrible things have also been done in the name of religion from the Crusades to 9/ll. On Sep. 11, 2001, I had to run for my life because of religious fanaticism. And all religions are capable of such extremism, which is why the founders of our great nation pointedly ignored organized religion.

In our wonderful country, it does not matter if you are a Protestant or a Catholic, a Jew or a Buddhist, a Sunni or a Shiite Muslim. If you are a citizen, you can vote. If you were born in this country, you can be president.

Long before you were born and when I was even younger than you are now, we were engaged in a terrible war. Every family in this country had someone in the service. Even the children collected scrap metal for the war effort. All rubber had to go to the war effort, so we walked everywhere. And there were almost no new toys being made. I had one doll. All the factories made guns and tanks and airplanes. There was no bubble gum!

We won that war and were so relieved that we added the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. But those words weren’t there originally. They weren’t needed to make George Washington a good person and a great president, or Abraham Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt. By the time you are old enough to become president of the United States of America, you should have learned right from wrong and how to be a strong, honest and brave leader whatever your religion and even if you have none at all.

I hope this letter is useful to your project and I hope you have many, many nice days and years.

Sincerely,

Betty Heller

To The Editor:

Thank you for giving me some way to make 9/11 meaningful. I feel better after sending the following letter to Mr. Ward’s sixth grade class:

Dear Sixth Grade Class of Mr. Ward:

Today is September 11th, and living within 1,000 feet of the World Trade Center site, I was wondering what could I do to make our world safer? I decided that answering your letter about wanting a Christian president would be a good start. I would like to focus on the un-American concept of religious zealousness and why America is great because of its tolerance and diversity.